NC Merit Pay Mess update 2023.

It is still a heated discussion. The PEPSC committee is now searching for a few school districts to pilot this program if the NCGA chooses to fund it. We’re waiting to see which districts they are courting.

We think Charlotte-Mecklenburg is being courted because the Belk Foundation scheduled an education retreat in Charlotte on Feb. 15. The focus of this retreat was to have a panel discussion on the Pathways to Excellence merit pay proposal. State superintendent Catherine Truitt was a keynote speaker. There were 7 other speakers, 6 of which are in education, but not in the classroom. Tickets were free, you just had to reserve your spot through EventBrite. Notably absent from this forum were actual teachers. Needless to say teachers decided that actual teachers need a presence so teachers across the state quickly snapped up tickets. It should be noted that these teachers were willing to use their own PTO to attend this event which was conveniently scheduled on a weekday during school hours.

All spots were reserved within 24 hours. 

Then, Monday (1/29) morning an email went out stating that these tickets would no longer be honored as this event. No explanation as to why. Eventually, an email from Belk Foundation Executive Director Jevelyn Bonner-Reed was sent explaining that “We have decided to postpone (not cancel) the event in order to accommodate the interest in the speakers and topics”. Oddly, this email was sent to some registrants, but not all. 

Smelling a little fishy here. An event was planned about education, but did not involve any teachers nor were teachers even given the opportunity i.e. invited to be a part of this. Once teachers found out about it and reserved seats they “postponed” it for really no apparent reason other than they do not want teachers there. Remember this merit pay proposal was planned and discussed in secrecy for 2 years. We know from a public records request (which exposed just how nefarious all this is) that they went to great lengths to keep this from teachers because they knew this is not going to be popular with teachers. They were hoping to ram this through without teacher input or knowledge with the hopes of that by the time teachers figured this out it would be too late. Seems like they were hoping for the same thing here. Roll into Charlotte with their  Rah Rah team of how great this is, convince CMS to pilot this program so they could brag about getting the largest school district in NC on board with this and then convince the NCGA to back this……all without any input from the very people that this directly impacts…..teachers. The one thing left out of this whole smelly pile of poo was teachers. 

Well, my fellow teacher peeps time to reach out to your representatives in the NCGA. Start putting pressure on them to reject this plan. Remind them you are a voter!. Remember, this plan was presented to other states such as Mississippi and they responded with a hard NO and gave their teachers a significant raise!  

It’s a bad plan. 

It will be bad for teachers. 

It will be bad for NC.

 It will be bad for education and ultimately bad for our children.

North Carolina can do better, must do better and deserves better.